A letter from Zaheer: Nothing needs fixing. Especially not you.
Published 29 days ago • 2 min read
A Letter from Zaheer
Nothing needs fixing. Especially not you.
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If nothing needs fixing, then what am I here for?
An elephant at ease... not broken, not fixing... just being. I took this picture from our boat on the Chobe River in Botswana.
We’ve been trained to scan for problems. In ourselves. In others. In the world.
A constant loop: What’s wrong? How do I fix it?
We call it growth. We call it responsibility. But it's just the veneer we apply to mask our intuitive sense of misalignment.
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From the moment we're born, we're handed a story: "You are not enough, yet." "You must improve." "You must contribute." "You must make the world better."
Every kindness is framed as correction. Even love gets distorted into repair.
But what if nothing needs fixing?
Not the world. Not others. Not my thoughts. Not even me.
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That’s the terrifying realization. Because if nothing needs fixing… then what am I here for?
The ego trembles at that question. Because it lives through problems. It feeds on incompleteness.
No puzzle? No player.
No game? No winner. No loser.
No brokenness? No saviour.
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Every animal lives in harmony with what is. Except us.
Not because we’re bad... but because we’re identified with something that isn’t true: an imagined self that exists only in language.
No other animal tries to “fix” the world because no other animal abstracts the world the way we do.
Animals respond to life. Humans represent life… and then get amnesia.
We create a mental version of reality, see flaws in the map, and think reality is broken... not realizing we're trying to repair an imagined representation.
Self-awareness gives the power to imagine alternate futures... and the curse of believing the present is inherently insufficient.
This is what birthed the fixer: The one who says “this shouldn’t be.” The one who says “I must do something to matter.”
Words made the map. Then we forgot the land beneath it.
We mistook the commentary for life. And the one doing the commentary… for me.
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This “me” is the fixer.
It needs an identity to manage. A purpose to pursue. A future to fix.
The story of fixing is reinforced by the stories we grow up inside:
Capitalism: productivity = worth
Religion: fallen = must be saved
Education: learn to improve
Family systems: “Be good, make things better”
We were conditioned to see problems everywhere, especially within.
So we walk the Earth not as beings, but as solutions in search of problems.
A hammer looking for nails.
But the real you? Is prior to that.
Not the fixer. Not the fixed. Just awareness. Still. Whole. Untouched.
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There is no problem here. Only the belief that there should be.
Let that sink in.
No urgent cause. No healing arc. No “you” to evolve.
Only this: To realize the miracle of awareness... the very source of conscious existence.
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So pause... Not to reset. Not to improve. But to notice:
You are already what you’re seeking.
The world is already what it is.
And there is nothing terrifying about that... it is liberating.
The very part of you that can imagine separation is what creates this endless need to fix:
Thought breaks wholeness into pieces.
Language names the fragments.
Memory builds stories about what’s wrong.
Desire tries to make it right.
This human overlay — thought — hijacks the still presence of being. It makes you believe that unless you're doing... you're nothing.
But the animal body knows. It breathes. It rests. It feels.
It is.
No other species mistakes rest for failure.
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Pause and reflect:
What if every problem you see… is the echo of an imagined self trying to be real?
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A gentle dare:
Stop fixing. Start seeing.
Not through the lens of lack. But through the grace of wholeness.
Let this be enough. Let you be enough. Let it all, finally, just be.
